Thursday, September 13, 2007

Practice Cake #1

So in an attempt to see if cake decorating could be a possible viable business for me I thought it wise to dust off my cake decorating skills and give it a whirl. I made a yellow cake from scratch and also buttercream and royal icings. After much powdered sugar mess and many hours later this was the result:

It didn't turn out like I'd initially planned, but I like it nonetheless. The flowers are made of royal icing, so they are harder, but the rest is buttercream, a really yummy buttercream if I do say so myself. I really need to buy some new cake pans. The ones I have are 9 inch and have sloped sides. Not conducive to straight cake baking. I got some other shots of the cake too:

and...

Now since I really don't want to gain 25 pounds in my venture to practice cake decorating we needed a plan to get rid of the cake. So we called in reinforcements. A few of our friends (more the the usuals, amazingly enough) came over to help us out. Anton made sure to snap a picture of me with the cake before the demolition began:

(Horrid fluorescent lighting!!)

I couldn't bring myself to cut into it after all the time I'd put into it so I passed the knife to our friend Andre and he did the deed for me:

Bella couldn't wait to have a piece:

Once the initial cut was made it didn't take long for the cake to go from this:

To this:

To this:

And finally to this:

We ate the last piece for lunch today. I ate one piece and it was so rich I almost couldn't finish it, but Anton bravely swallowed down 3 pieces, all for my weigh loss' sake. What a brave, selfless man. Andre managed 2 and Ella 1. The rest of us adults stuck with one. Even Alex partook and quite enjoyed.

The final consensus was that the cake was good, but a bit dry. I'm just not good at cakes from scratch. I'll have to go back to my secret method that always works perfectly!!

Today I started on practice cake #2 and it will be my first foray into the world of fondant. All the pieces have been prepped and tomorrow it will hopefully be assembled. Wish me luck!

4 comments:

Oh my gosh, you are amazing. Not only are you the world's best digital scrapbooker, but now you are the world's best cake maker. That cake was BEAUTIFUL. If I still lived there, I would hire you to make me one. Seriously, it was so good. My other friend Amanda from Florida (Amanda Thompson, lives on base, not a member) also was learning to decorate cakes, and she started a little business there. She made a little money what with wingings and parties and little things like that. But Milton is a good place to do it because the only other competition is a little bakery in town. So you could get rich! Anyway, just thought I would tell you all that nonsense. Good job. :)

Hey Amanda, So I've come across your blog via the Fillmores I think, Steve added your page to our friends list and I had to check it out! Anyway, it's great! It's great to see what you are up to and I am so amazed at your talent! Incredible scrapbooking, and now amazing cakes! My biggest question is how do you find the time?! I am really impressed and inspired to find something I love to do! Thanks for sharing! Lindsay Bay